The bohemia of the Musical Rent by Jonathan Larson tells the story of a year in the life of a group of poor youth and struggling artists friends living in New York during the times of the AIDS epidemic. The social issues triggering the creation of and reflected in this musical was The AIDS epidemic and the impoverishment in New York at the time of the early 1990s. AIDS and HIVs were largely spread with 26,336 cases of AIDS reported in New York State in December of 1989 with 87% of the total being just in New York City. This epidemic seemed to target the homosexuals of the time being that this disease is spread thriugh intercorse and it seemed that a large percentage of the homosexuals came down with cases. It can also be spread through needles such as when taking drugs. …show more content…
Being an artist was a large struggle being that those jobs weren’t as easy to follow and make a living off of and the price for living in the city is a difficult one even with a steady job. This musical has drug addicts, homeosexuals, the poor, artists just trying to make a living, and just people who have AIDS/HIV, covering all of the major people found in the time of the actual epidemic. The Musical is also based off of Puccini's opera, La Boheme but Larson just took a twist and set it in modern day with different issues. In December 1995 Larson wrote a one-sentence summary of the show: "Rent is about a community celebrating life, in the face of death and AIDS, at the turn of the century." Rent was a huge breakthrough in musical theatre with the music and bring such an amazing and new relatable story to the young and struggling of the
One important scene in the film ‘The Age of Aids’ is “Port Au Prince, Haiti”. In this scene it outlines the conditions in Haiti, which were very poor and it turn left the city defenseless against the new disease. In 70’s and 80’s the disease began to be seen by doctors and priests who were being sought after to cure a unseen disease which left the people with the “look of death, [making them] so skinny you could see their bones”. The scene then goes on to take a look at one of the first HIV clinics in Port Au Prince, which was opened in the roughest parts of town. One of the surprising things that this clinic found when they were looking at the patients coming in was that the mean they were analyzing had more contact with women then they had with men. This was extremely interesting because this was completely different from what the pattern of the disease had been in the US. The doctors believed this was because homosexual males had been coming into Haiti as tourists and where having sex with locals, who in comparison didn’t call themselves homosexuals because even though they had been having sex with men, the number of women they were having sex with greatly outnumbered the men. This was extremely important because it allowed people to open their eyes, and realize that this was not a homosexual disease, that anyone could get the disease. And that’s exactly what happened within the Haitian community. Within three years the disease had spread across the entire island effects all aspects of society. This scene was effective because it is able to change a viewer with little knowledge of the disease to understand how doctors were able to come to the conclusion that the disease was not in fact a homosexual ...
When I hear the word Rent, I immediately see an eclectic Broadway production, overflowing with talent, adventure, and magic. I picture scantly clad actresses, strutting across the stage. I envision stunning duets and thought-provoking lyrics. That single word transports me to a different time and place.
The Movie “And the Band Played On” is the framework of the earliest years of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Also known as the Gay disease. The movie examines HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States in the earlier 1980’s and emphasizes on three crucial components. An immunologist with knowledge in eradicating smallpox and containing the Ebola virus, joins the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to attempt and recognize just what this disease is. The film also deals the administration and government side that does not seem to care. The homosexual community in San Francisco is separated on the nature of the disease but also want to know what should be done
thesis of how the musical brought our inner child out to realize our true struggles in life.
“And the Band Played On” was an HBO movie that illustrated the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and early 1990s. The movie touched on subjects concerning the reaction of the gay community, the heterosexual community, and the medical community. It showed not only the research in AIDS, but also the way that the US government dealt with it. The movie expressed the consequences the gay community suffered, the plight of the medical community in researching the disease, and the issue of government response to it.
It all began the previous summer. Lana, being a huge Broadway enthusiast, saved up enough money to buy tickets for BroadwayCon, which was a Broadway convention. There were no words that could describe how ecstatic she felt as she entered the building. Show tunes filled the air. To her right, Patti Lupone was signing autographs. To her left, they were selling Broadway merchandise. Up ahead, Lin-Manuel Miranda was performing “My Shot” from Hamilton. There were people sharing their different musical obsessions everywhere. Lana was truly in heaven.
In the movie “And the Band Played On”, illustrated the origin of the AIDS virus, how it was spread across the world quickly. It began with a scene in 1976, Central Africa, shows how the Ebola disease affected a village and was contained before it was spread. This was to show the beginning of another serious disease called AIDS. The world was not prepared to handle such a contagious plague. Doctors treating people with this virus thought that the first cases of the HIV virus was just an abnormality disease. The disease started to spread all over, especially gay men. Throughout the movie, I was able to see different points, such as the beginning of AIDS, the misconceptions it had, and the anguish it brought to the doctors as well as people around the world.
Baltimore Waltz was composed nearly a year and a half after Vogel’s brother, Carl, succumbed to the AIDs virus in 1988. In 1986, Carl had asked Vogel to join him on a trip around Europe, in which Vogel explained in The Baltimore Sun article, “ Due to pressures of time and money, I declined, never dreaming that he was HIV-positive.” Vogel was originally abstinent about writing the story of her and her sibling due to their close bond, but after nearly a year and a half she decided to write it as a memorial piece (Rousuck). Understanding the events that took place during the 1980s AIDs epidemic is imperative to grasping the deep emotional turmoil and fear that took place, especially in understanding
Marguerite Gautier was chaste of heart. She was also a courtesan. She was diseased yet desirable. As Alexandre Dumas, fils’ consumptive heroine in his 1852 play, La Dame aux caméllias, Marguerite Gautier comes to represent “Everywoman, required to be both virtuous and alluring, and compelled to find identity in worldly suffering and the promise of otherworldly redemption”. Romanticized visions of ideal femininity like those found in Dumas, fils’ female protagonist swept through the literature and performing arts of the nineteenth century. Identification of this ideal femininity rested on the double myth of the sinner/saint, as well as feminine disease being inexorably linked to desire. From Marguerite’s diseased and dichotomal womb springs forth other notable nineteenth century tubercular women, including Mimi the seamstress, from Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème. Puccini’s famous 1896 Italian opera serves as source material for Jonathan Larson’s 1996 Broadway musical Rent, which also features a diseased heroine, Mimi Marquez, but her illness is AIDS. A closer look at the female leads in La Bohème and Rent shows that Dumas, fils’ Marguerite served as an ancestral ideal of femininity for her descendants in these works. Examining the texts of both La Bohème and Rent reveal separate but similar gazes backwards to Camille. Although removed from Camille by forty-six and two hundred and forty-six years respectively, La Bohème and Rent anxiously repeat the conventions of Dumas, fils in the construction of the ideal heroine and the treatment of disease in the feminine.
The Laramie Project is a significant play of the 20th century due to the way that it uses the innovative performance style of verbatim theatre to reveal underlying homophobic attitudes in America and to encourage the audience to be more tolerant and accepting of minorities. The play is used as a vehicle for discussion to engage the audience to explore this social issue and encouraged them reflect on their own bias regarding tolerance and acceptance of homosexuals. This play emerged in a context of opposing cultural attitudes in America. The Gay Liberation Movement of the 1970’s and 1980’s conflicted with very conservative and religious attitudes in America, which was heightened by the AIDs crisis in the 1980’s
The Dallas Buyers Club was a film based on an individual Ron Woodroof who was diagnosed with AIDS outbreak during the 1980s. This was a time in which research of HIV/AIDS treatment was significantly underdeveloped as there was no effective medication for the patients diagnosed with this condition. Also during this time period, a stigma had developed in which only homosexuals/bisexuals could contract the life-threatening disease as this particular group of individuals were not favored by the public “eye.” Today, this stigma still exists even with the advanced amount of research that has been done to thoroughly prove that this particular group were not the only individuals to acquire the disease.
The 2000s/ 2010s brought in a wave of movie musicals- adapted from the stage shows. These brought new audiences into the theatre world, and for the first time in 20 years, brought a love to some of the timeless musicals. With slightly altered songs to appeal to a newer audience, these films brought in much needed money into the industry, with films including: Les Misérables, Phantom of the Opera, Rent, Hairspray, Mamma Mia, Fame- and many more. Together with this, musicals began to push the concept of the songs in them, with a wave of new styles being written. Rap musicals such as ‘Hamilton’ and ‘In The Heights’, Pop musicals including ‘Waitress’ and ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ and Rock musicals of ‘American Idiot’ and ‘Spring Awakening’. Together they pushed boundaries of a ‘traditional’ musical theatre sound, and brought in something never before seen. Due to the influence of ‘Rent’, controversial issues and themes began to be explored more, such as Teen suicide, Murder, Ethnic barriers and everything else, which brought with them, a world of opportunities. It was clear that musical theatre was once again showing for a promising
Wells, E A. (2011) West Side Story Cultural Perspectives on an American musical. Maryland: Scarecrow Press, Inc.
The movie “Shakespeare in Love” shows the business process of theater, along with Shakespeare’s struggles in his career and love life. Shakespeare in Love is a fictional account of the life that inspired the play Romeo and Juliet. Throughout the movie there are scenes, which you can relate to modern times comical irony devious behavior manipulation and how everything does not matter in the case of love. The story is perfect and ties together all the parts of the actual play and what may have really happened to the life of Shakespeare. The writers produced an imaginative romantic comedy in the style of Shakespeare that is very believable. They bring the viewer along for a fictitious account of what may have motivated Shakespeare to write one of the greatest plays of all times. This film captures the coarseness and bawdiness of the period as well as its soaring poetry. It places Shakespeare’s world in a modern context and makes it accessible, without diminishing the impact of his words.
...t was solely seen as a gay disease, and at the time society was comprised of mostly homophobic individuals. In its infancy, people were terrified of the disease; no one reacted at first due to fear, not even the gay community itself, but just as fear immobilizes, it can be a perpetual motivator. “Watching a generation of gay men wither and die, the nation came to acknowledge the humanity of a community it had mostly ignored and reviled” (Osmond). Slowly but surely the disease became official and accepted as what it is in media, television, movies and society. AIDS changed many things in America, from how Gays were being portrayed in the media, to how they were being treated in society. AIDS did however, have one good outcome; it increased patience and support for other causes, initiating ‘patient activism’ which is helping said causes find treatments and cures.